The Trump Administration’s assault on the administrative state has received significant attention. But it is a mistake to interpret the weakening of the administrative state during the first or second Trump Administration as exceptional, or as a cyclical, asymmetric phenomenon that characterizes Republican administrations. Rather, we are in the midst of a period of secular decline of the American state, albeit one that has become more acute in the second Trump Administration. This Article outlines fifteen dynamics in American politics, law, policy, and society that all push in the direction of secular decline. Some of these dynamics have been at play for decades, contributing to the already comparatively weak American state. Others are recently emergent or systemic features of decline. The consequences of decline are significant: a rise in harms to consumers, increased economic instability, less innovation, weakened resilience in crises, weakening global power and the rise of the power of adversaries, and social fracturing within society. Disrupting decline will require not just a commitment to building state capacity but understanding and accepting the uncomfortable truth that many of the causes of state decline have been longstanding.
LawReview
